Here in my village there's quite a lot of my family/relatives. Of course there's my mother and old man, my sister with her family and my cousin. Then there's my uncle and two of my aunts with their s.o. It is very nice to have a lot of my kind here.
But we all age. My oldest aunt E is really getting old, it seems. Last summer she complained about her feet, and her eyesight is getting worse. She has real physical problems with her eyes, and she had had two operations, now there's a lot of scarring which makes her vision blurred. But it is not the problem. I think (and my yongest aunt, who doesn't live here and my sister) that she's getting some memory chellenges.
She can handle most things, but in last few months she's been saying it's very difficult for her to start doing things. When she can make herself to start something, there's no problem. And she says it's the most difficult in the morning, in the afternoon everything is easier. Hmmm.
No this week she got a change in medication (her previous one 2x4mg tablets were replaced by 1x8mg tablet) and for some reason this was something she couldn't get grasp to it. She had written down the notes from her nurse several times (and they were ok, nothing amiss there) but she was so unsure if she was going to have the right dose. (she worked over 40 years in accounting, she know he numbers). She had written and calculated everything right, but just couldn't understand.
She had called my yongest aunt a couple of times already. She lives three hours away, so of course she couldn't do anything. She called my sister, who was stuck with number three who's teething... And she called me.
One thing I also noted was her handwriting is deteriorating. She's had one of the most neat handwriting I've ever seen (another is my mother - I've not inherited it). Of course you can blame her poor sight for that, but...
I filled her medicin dispenser with the right pills, wrote down EVERY pill she needs to take for the next week and she put a mark on her dispenser what date each weekday is. She showed me a cabbage she had bought in order to cook a cabbage stew. This was yesterday.
Today I went for a 'Sumawalk and took my time to greet my aunt, too. She had taken the right pills (yay!) bus asked if I was going to town to shops. She said she needs some ready meals, because she can't just get going with her cooking. Oh dear. I asked if she wanted me to help her to chop the cabbage?
So in the end, we chopped the cabbage, then she wanted to check her blood pressure and I finished cooking the stew. I even chopped a whole onion! with gloves, of course (I can't touch raw onions). Tomorrow I'll go and check her fridge if there's any old spoiled food. I'm NOT going to fill her fridge, but I can help her do things.
Yes, she's getting older and having troubles with several issues. She lives alone, in a big bungalow, she has a swimming pool in her yard, a VERY nice garden with VERY neat flower beds, she still drives (her eye problem doesn't affect her driving, doctor has confirmed that) but everything is going to be too much for her eventually.